Mysterious Lemons
by Puddle-Jumper38
Summary: One lemon, two lemons, three lemons, four. Five lemons, six lemons, seven lemons, MORE! Where are all these lemons coming from?
1. Chapter 1

**MYSTERIOUS LEMONS**

**Disclaimer: **Unfortunately I don't own Stargate Atlantis, or the characters, or the Puddle Jumpers, nor Atlantis itself…. But I really enjoy taking all the ideas and writing about all the characters. (only on this site, don't sue, re-read the disclaimer)

**Description:** One lemon, two lemons, three lemons, four. Five lemons, six lemons, seven lemons, MORE! Where are all these lemons coming from?!

**WARNING:** This is about allergies. It is not written to be offensive in any way and I assure you that i do not find allergies funny. But this is a humor fic and as it has been writen working from things said only on the show and so in this story McKay's citrus allergy will be considered to be very mild and mainly a product of his hypercondria.

This is inspired by the many comments of McKay's allergy on the show, notably from 'The Game' and SG-1's 'The Pegasus Project'.

**CHAPTER ONE**

"AAAHHHGGGHH!!!"

The scream echoed through the corridors of Atlantis and over the radios sending people running out of their quarters wondering what the hell was going on. Was it the wraith? The Genii? The replicators? Or something else?

"AAHHGGH!! HELP!"

The peace was all too often disturbed at some ungodly hour, but that didn't mean anyone was prepared to be woken suddenly by one o'clock in the morning wake up screams, particularly when there had been no apparent threat the previous day.

Lt. Col. John Sheppard ran in the general direction of the screams (his hair sticking up more then usual as a result of getting up and dressed very quickly) and skidded to a halt as he saw Dr Rodney McKay staring in complete horror at something inside his lab.

"What?!" asked Sheppard sharply, his P90 raised, as he realised that the scientist had been the source of the screams.

"A LEMON!" shrieked McKay hysterically.

Sheppard stared at him for a moment then, lowering his P90, he stepped forward and looked into McKay's lab. Sure enough, suspended from the ceiling by a string and swinging gently from side to side was a lemon.

Judging from the swinging, McKay had walked right into it, but although McKay thought that was a good cause to scream at the top of his lungs through his turned on radio, Sheppard was less then impressed.

"McKay," he started, his voice had a dangerous edge to it. "Were you screaming because of this?"

His eyes as round as saucers, McKay nodded.

"I see," said Sheppard, wondering if he should cut down the lemon and throw it at McKay or simply shoot his teammate.

Luckily, McKay was saved from either of these options by Dr Elizabeth Weir's panicked voice over the radio.

"_John? Who screamed? What's going on?"_

Turning his back on McKay, who was only just recovering from his nasty shock, Sheppard answered, keeping his tone as even as possible.

"It's okay, nothing serious. Someone suspended a lemon from the ceiling in McKay's lab."

There was a short silence then: _"Someone suspended a lemon?"_

"Yes," replied Sheppard.

"_From the ceiling of McKay's lab?"_ asked Weir, her voice taking on the same dangerous edge that Sheppard's had had only moments before.

"Yes."

"_At one o'clock in the morning?" _finished Weir.

"Apparently," Sheppard confirmed. Then he sighed. "Wish they'd done it early. Then we would have still been up."

"Excuse me?" spluttered McKay indignantly, feeling it was time to join in the conversation. "What do you mean you wish they'd done it earlier? I wish they hadn't done it at all!"

Sheppard glared at him. "Maybe I'd be more sympathetic if you hadn't just woken me up at one in the morning!"

Somehow Weir doubted he'd ever be sympathetic about McKay's citrus allergy, after all she found it hilarious that someone had planted a lemon in McKay's she just was sure that if she burst out laughing at him she'd get cold showers, which was not acceptable.

"Oh, I'm sorry," snapped McKay sarcastically. "Maybe I won't care when someone has an attempt on _your _life!"

"An attempt on your life? Can just walking into a citrus fruit kill you now? Wow, this allergy of yours gets worse every day!"

"_Okay, that's enough."_ Weir stopped the argument before it could get any further out of control. _"Do you have any idea who 'they' are yet?"_

"No, of course not. No-one who works in my lab with me would be brave enough to do this," replied McKay, refusing to look into his lab at the offending lemon.

_"Then we'll worry about that in the morning. John, I'm going to assure all the panicked people in the control room who heard Rodney over their radios that the city is not under attack. I suggest you do the same for the people running around the corridors, particularly the military ones, we don't want them unnecessarily pointing their guns at everyone they see. McKay, go to bed, we'll have a meeting at ten o'clock tomorrow morning."_

McKay scowled. "I still have work to do – but I currently can't go in my lab."

Sheppard rolled his eyes. "I'll get rid of the lemon."

"_Good," _said Weir. _"But Rodney?"_

"Yes?" asked McKay.

_"Don't scream hysterically next time."_

McKay gathered as much dignity as possible. "I'm going to the infirmary."

He stalked off.

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**A/N: **Heh, one of my humor stories again. Please enjoy, plenty more lemons to come. Feel free to guess who's leaving the lemons at any time during the story. Oh, and I update much quicker when I'm getting reviews, so…. Please review! (constructive criticism is welcome).


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** Thanks to the people who reviewed! :) It's nice to have people guessing who's leaving the lemons already, I'll try to leave subtle clues along the way.... Though I'm not too good at subtle, hopefully I won't make it too easy.

**CHAPTER TWO**

Weir was last to the conference room at five past ten. She supposed she should have been the first there, but she'd decided to save herself explaining to Ronon and Teyla –and probably Sheppard too- why they were bothering to have the meeting in the first place. The last thing she wanted to do was explain that to McKay, who had doubtlessly been the first one there.

Truth be told the only reason Weir had called the meeting was to humor McKay, really she admired the person who'd planted the lemon in such an imaginative way and had no intention of finding out who it had been. After all, despite McKay's claims (She'd checked with Beckett just to be on the safe side), an unpeeled lemon simply touching his skin was extremely unlikely to do anything.

As she entered the conference room she saw that McKay was talking in a heated tone to the rest of his team, who looked decidedly bored. Weir realised she'd been just in time after all. Much longer and God knows what would have happened.

McKay stopped talking when he saw her, but only for a second. "_There_ you are."

"Here I am," Weir confirmed. "What have I missed?"

"McKay's ramble. You abandoned us with him." Sheppard gave her his wounded puppy stare.

Weir instantly felt guilty. "Sorry."

Weir noticed that Ronon was looking at McKay with a dangerous glint in his eyes, even Teyla looked fed up.

"Why are we here?" asked Ronon.

Weir sighed. "To discuss the… _incident_ last night."

"Obviously," agreed McKay. "I've been putting together a list of people who-"

"Wait." Weir stopped him. "When did you do that?"

McKay waved a hand impatiently. "Last night. Anyway, on the list-"

"Didn't you say you were working last night?" questioned Weir.

"Circumstances change. I realised I had to have something ready for today's meeting, after all the aim _is_ to find out who's trying to kill me. I say no-one leaves this room until we figure it out." McKay looked very determined.

Weir fought back a groan. This had not been the idea of the meeting.

Sheppard, however, did groan, causing McKay to look at him accusingly.

"What?" McKay demanded.

"I haven't even had breakfast yet, I don't want to spend all morning in here trying to find out who left a lemon in your lab. Honestly, I don't care."

Weir froze; that was not going to help.

McKay's eyes narrowed, he took a deep breath. Weir braced herself.

"You don't care?!" snapped McKay. "You know about my citrus allergy! I am deathly allergic! Deathly! Whoever put that lemon there is still on the base and they're trying to kill me! Who knows what they'll try next?!"

"Lemon meringue pie?" suggested Sheppard innocently.

Weir couldn't help it, she snorted. In her defence she had found out that McKay had to actually eat the citrus for it to trigger an allergy, and it certainly wouldn't kill him.

"I knew it!" shouted McKay, aiming the comment at both Sheppard and Weir. "You find this funny! Well let me tell you it's not the slightest bit funny! There is a potential murderer running around! Oh, and guess what? They almost certainly have a gun!"

Teyla pretended to look interested. "We understand, Rodney. Why don't you tell us the people on that list you made?"

Deciding that Teyla had the right idea, Weir nodded keeping her face as serious as possible. "Yes, who do you think it was Rodney?"

McKay seemed happier now they appeared to be on his side. "Right. I thought long and hard about it and so at the top of the list is Zelenka. After all, with me out of the way he could be promoted to head scientist."

Weir tried very hard not to laugh or even smile. Of course McKay would have a theory behind each of his 'suspects'.

"Second, I have put down Kavanagh. He always envied me and I'm sure we all remember when he tried to kill me," proclaimed McKay.

Sheppard raised an eyebrow. "Oh really?"

Weir wondered if Kavanagh had given McKay some form of citrus fruit before, honestly she hadn't thought the man had enough of a sense of humor.

"Yes, remember when that bug attached itself to your neck?" McKay asked Sheppard.

Sheppard scowled.

"I'll take that as a yes," continued McKay, without giving Sheppard time to actually say anything. "Well Kavanagh wanted to close the shield on us."

"He wasn't trying to kill you Rodney," said Weir. "He was trying to ensure his own safety."

"Whatever, he was still trying to kill me. Next on my list is Major Lorne."

Sheppard sniggered. "Lorne? I've _got_ to hear your reason for him."

McKay glared at him. "He threatened to shoot me."

"Hmm. Perfectly understandable," said Sheppard.

"When did he do that?" asked Weir, interested.

McKay hesitated. "Ah, actually he didn't exactly say he was going to shoot me, but he implied it. He said I must be a genius because something must've kept Sheppard from shoot me, which means, he wanted to shoot me."

"This is stupid," announced Ronon, getting up from the table.

"Hey!" complained McKay. "It's not stupid, someone's trying to kill me!"

"Sit down, Ronon," said Teyla in her calmest voice. "We shall wait until Rodney has finished telling us his list."

"No," McKay disagreed. "A lemon hanging from the ceiling is no joke! We're all staying until we all decide on who did this!"

"Okay," replied Weir, fighting the urge to yell 'I vote Kavanagh!' and then run out the room. "But we'll take a short break when you've finished telling us the rest of the people on your list."

Ronon grumbled something to himself, then sat back down.

"Oh," said McKay. "Fine. We'll take a _short_ break, when I've told you the final person on my list. And that person is…"

He stopped for what he hoped was a dramatic pause.

Teyla stifled a yawn.

"Sheppard," finished McKay.

"Hmm? Yeah? What?" asked Sheppard, who hadn't been listening.

McKay huffed in annoyance. "It's you. You're the last person on my list."

Sheppard sighed. "Oh. When did I try to kill you?"

"Er, well, you didn't. But it would be your idea of a joke!" snapped McKay.

"Right," called Weir, "time for our break."

"Great," said McKay. "I'm going to grab some coffee, we'll start again in five minutes."

He got up and left the room, Weir signalled for everyone else to stay in their seats, then she peered out of the room until McKay was out of sight.

"Quick!" said Weir. "Run!"

Teyla breathed a sigh of relief, while Ronon, who didn't need telling twice, was already half way out.

"Thank God," commented Sheppard. "I thought you were actually gonna have us sit here for hours."

Weir shook her head. "Not a chance. I'd have to sit here too."

Sheppard grinned. "Good point."

They hurried out of the conference room.

Five minutes later McKay came back, coffee in hand.

"Right, I've had another think and I've added-"

He stopped mid-sentence.

"Hello? Oh, haha, very funny. You can all stop hiding now," McKay told the empty conference room. Nothing moved. McKay turned on his heel and walked from the conference room to Chuck.

McKay pointed in the general direction of the conference room. "When did they leave?"

Keeping as straight a face as he could, Chuck replied, "Right after you did. They seemed in a bit of hurry."`

"I see," said McKay and stormed off.

Chuck sniggered.

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**A/N:**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:** Thank you to everyone who reviewed! I think i forgot to mention last chapter that i'll be posting this on Wednesday's, Friday's and Sunday's for the moment, that might change if i get lots of reviews....

**CHAPTER THREE**

"Who did this?" McKay demanded angrily, waving power bar in the face of one of his science team.

"I- I don't know," stammered the unfortunate scientist.

"Oh for the love of-" McKay waved the power bar menacingly, showed her the side of the wrapper saying it contained 2% lemon juice. "There is no way anyone could have swapped every power bar on the base for lemon flavoured ones without someone noticing! So tell me; who did this?!"

"Really," insisted the scientist, taking a step back. "I've no idea!"

McKay studied her carefully and with more then a little suspicion. "Fine. I you can't tell me that then tell me where Sheppard, Ronon, Teyla or Weir are, and I might forgive you."

"Colonel Sheppard's in his office," squeaked the scientist.

"What? Sheppard never uses his office!" snapped McKay, then realisation dawned. "Oh the little sneak!"

McKay shoved past the scientist and stalked off heading for Sheppard's office.

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Sheppard sat in his office, boots up on the table, attempting to keep his attention on _War and Peace_. He guessed he should probably do some of the paperwork that he kept conveniently forgetting about, but that idea was even less entertaining then _War and Peace_.

Sheppard was just wondering if he should go and get a DVD and a computer to play it on when McKay burst in, not bothering to knock.

"What do you think you're doing?!" asked McKay.

"Reading?" offered Sheppard somewhat hopeful that McKay would believe him.

"No, you're not!" argued McKay dashing Sheppard's hopes. "You're _hiding_! You just swapped all the power bars to lemon flavoured ones and then hid in here!"

"Oh, I did? Wow, well that's news to me… hang on, lemon flavoured _power bars_?" questioned Sheppard in disbelief.

"That's right! And don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about!"

"You just told me what you're talking about," pointed out Sheppard.

"Yes! I… did…" McKay faltered, then recovered. "But you already knew! This is phase two after hanging the lemon in my lab!"

Sheppard sighed. "Why would I hang a lemon in your lab so you can wake up the entire expedition, including me, in the middle of the night?"

"I… I don't know! But if you did do this then I will catch you and then I'll report you to Elizabeth as an attempted murderer! Wait, no, I'll report you to the SGC!"

"McKay, I didn't hang the lemon in your lab or get the lemon power bars, okay?"

McKay's eyes narrowed. "We'll see about that."

He turned and left Sheppard's office. Sheppard decided he'd gotten off lightly, McKay hadn't even mentioned the conference room incident… or the lemon meringue pie.

Sheppard got up from his chair, shot a disdainful look at _War and Peace_, and went to play golf.

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McKay entered the mess hall to grab a snack, usually he'd have got a power bar or three, but unfortunately all the power bars were poisoned. He took a quick look at the fruit basket on his way past and jumped backwards into a marine, who muttered something unpleasant sounding and walked off.

McKay ignored him, the fruit basket (which was usually full of fairly innocent fruits and the occasional orange) was now stuffed full of lemons. McKay glared at it and gave it a wide birth as he walked over to the desserts… and got another nasty surprise.

There, right next to the blue Jell-O, was a nice big lemon meringue pie. It had a fancy sign next to it claiming: _Made with fresh lemons!_

McKay clenched and unclenched his hands and teeth, his face started to go red. Zelenka came up to him.

"Ah, are you okay?"

"Sheppard!" hissed McKay, completely ignoring Zelenka. Then he snatched the cup of blue Jell-O furthest from the lemon meringue pie and left the mess hall, heading right back to Sheppard's office.

McKay wasn't at all put off that Sheppard wasn't in his office, instead he went to the control room and brought up the life signs detector. There was no-one in Sheppard's quarters, but there was someone at the gym and at the shooting range and golf course.

Those three places would be an excellent place to start looking.

McKay found Sheppard at the golf course, and scanned the area near the door with his eyes.

McKay grinned evilly when he saw Sheppard's headpiece-radio abandoned near the door with Sheppard's spare golf clubs. Perfect for his revenge plan.

Quietly McKay got to work on the radio then replaced it and slipped out unnoticed by the colonel.

Then he took out his life signs detector and stood out of site, this would definitely be worth following Sheppard around for the rest of the day. He had to make sure that Sheppard didn't swap radios, or discover that there was something wrong with his.

That night McKay watched as Sheppard entered his quarters, with the same radio he'd had at the golf course.

McKay waited a while after Sheppard closed the door behind him before leaving his hiding place and going up to the control panel of Sheppard's door.

As quietly as possible McKay prised off the top panel and then, one by one, removed the three control crystals. Then he reattached the top panel and made off with the control crystals to the door of Sheppard's quarters. Without them no-one would be getting in or –more importantly- out.

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**A/N: **Now press that nice green button to review! Again, any critizium is welcome, or anything you'd like to be added to the story. :)


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: **Now, lets see if Rodney's little experiment worked...

**CHAPTER FOUR**

For the hundredth time that morning Sheppard cursed and waved his hand in front of the panel that should've opened his door, and for the hundredth time the door stubbornly remained closed.

Sheppard had already tried to radio for the control room to find out what the hell was wrong with his door and had discovered that his radio wasn't working. He'd had a good look at the radio and had discovered that at some point in the day someone had prised open his headpiece-radio and cut off one of the wires. Great.

Also it seemed too much of a coincidence, door locked and radio broken. Either that or he was paranoid. The later needed serious consideration after two and a half years in the Pegasus Galaxy. Sheppard decided that he would give it serious consideration, _after_ he got out of his quarters. If it turned out that someone had locked him in on purpose they were going to get the most boring, plainest missions for a very long time, or suspended 'gate travel for an equally long time.

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"Rodney!" called Weir as she saw the scientist walking through the control room.

McKay stopped and turned around. "Yes?"

"Have you seen John today?" asked Weir. "I was going to speak to him about some late mission reports, he probably hasn't even started them."

"Oh… no. I haven't seen him," said McKay, doing his best to look innocent.

"Okay, then, I'll radio him," replied Weir and activated her headpiece.

"Okay." McKay made a hurried retreat before Weir could realise that Sheppard wasn't answering his radio.

McKay decided that if no-one had let Sheppard out by evening he'd return the control crystals. He stepped into a transporter and headed for his lab, he never got that far.

The corridor leading to his lab was lined on both sides with lemons. McKay stopped and stared, it occurred to him that there were an awful lot of lemons and that they couldn't' have possibly gotten there on their own.

Yet Sheppard was locked in his quarters with no way of contacting anyone.

McKay wondered how all these lemons had been cleared to make the trip to Atlantis, this was not one persons doing. In fact, it had to be more then one person, it must have taken quite some organisation and at least one of those people had to have a high authority position.

Of course, if it was a group it meant McKay couldn't rule out Sheppard, which, in McKay's opinion, couldn't be a bad thing considering that he'd already locked the colonel in his own quarters.

There was one thing McKay was sure of; the lemon attackers _had_ to be caught and there was one way to do that. Find out the person or people doing it and have evidence again them. That was not a problem.

With all the electronic gear on Atlantis a genius would have no trouble creating a bunch of new security cameras.

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Teyla and Ronon stopped outside Sheppard's quarters.

"Do you really think he's still asleep?" questioned Ronon doubtfully.

Teyla shook her head. "No, not asleep, but I cannot think of anywhere else to look."

Ronon shrugged. "Yeah, we even checked his office."

Teyla knocked loudly on the door. There was a thud and a clatter of someone dropping something from inside.

"Hey! Who's there?" called Sheppard.

Ronon exchanged a glance with Teyla.

"Me and Teyla. You missed our run this morning," Ronon informed him.

"I know!" Sheppard replied. "I can't get the damn door open!"

"What?" asked Ronon.

"The door! I can't get it open!"

"Why did you not radio for help?" asked Teyla, worriedly glancing over at Ronon.

"My radios broken!" replied Sheppard, sounding irritated.

"We will try to open the door from this side," called Teyla, envisioning the correct crystal alignment to manually open the door. Take out the middle crystal, move the top one down, then use the middle one to bridge the other two crystals.

Teyla moved to the door panel and discovered the problem with her plan. There were no crystals.

"John, we have a problem."

"What?"

"The control crystals on this side are gone," Teyla told him.

"Great! I was just thinking I wanted to stay in here for a few more hours!" complained Sheppard.

Can't you open it manually from your side?" asked Ronon.

"No. I've tried that."

Ronon shrugged. "We'll go get McKay."

"No," said Teyla. "We will get Dr Zelenka. Rodney will doubtlessly be busy trying to find out who is planting lemons around the city."

"Good point," said Ronon.

"We will be back soon," Teyla assured Sheppard, wondering who had locked him in his quarters.

"Thanks, and could you find out where McKay is for me?"

Teyla frowned. "Of course."

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McKay was working busily on his new security cameras in a spare lab when the door was flung open and Sheppard stormed in.

McKay almost dropped the camera he was working on; if looks could kill then Sheppard would never need a gun again.

"Uh, hi," McKay greeted his teammate. "I, ah, haven't seen you yet today."

Sheppard's eye twitched; not a good sign in McKay's books. "Gee, I wonder why that would be."

"Well I have no idea. Why would I know?" McKay gave a nervous laugh. "I thought you were playing golf or… or reading or something…"

"Oh did you?" Sheppard marched right up to the desk McKay was sitting at, dug his hand into his pocket, pulled out three control crystals and dropped them on the desk. "These were in your lab."

"Oh, err, um, those…" McKay failed to think of an excuse. "You put lemon meringue pie in the mess hall!"

"No I didn't!"

"Yes you did!"

"No I didn't!"

McKay sensed that this argument wasn't going to go anywhere very quickly. "Yes you did!"

"No, I didn't put it there! I saw it yesterday morning, I thought that was why you'd come to my office!" snapped Sheppard.

"Really?" asked McKay suspiciously.

"Yes, really!"

"Oh, well, uh, I don't believe you!" replied McKay stubbornly.

"I don't care." Sheppard snatched the control crystals back off the desk. "I've spoken to Elizabeth, for the next two days you'll be reporting to Zelenka. No arguments."

He left the lab.

McKay leaned back in his chair. "Oh, that is not fair. I've going to catch these lemon people if it's the last thing I do!"

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**A/N: **Should McKay belive Sheppard? And how many of them are there? You'll find out next chapter... with part of it including the people leaving the lemons, no names of course. Please review and tell me what you think!


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: **Yes, i know i said i'd update on Sundays, Fridays and Wednesdays, sorry! i've been getting ahead of myself, so now i'll be posting Tuesdays and Fridays. Now, meet the conspiring people...

**CHAPTER FIVE**

At exactly 9 pm four people piled into an old room in the outskirts of the city. These people called themselves the Mysterious Lemoners.

Mysterious Lemoner 1 started the meeting. "Our Earth based fifth member has assured me that all the processed lemon goods are aboard the Daedalus and we received another three crates of fresh lemons today."

"Well, that's good, we were nearly out of fresh lemons, people actually took some of the in the fruit basket in the mess hall," announced Mysterious Lemoner 2.

"Who planted those lemons?" asked Mysterious Lemoner 3.

Mysterious Lemoner 4 smiled. "I did. Who planted the lemon meringue pie near the blue Jell-O?"

"That was me," replied Mysterious Lemoner 1. "I got the idea from John, though I honestly didn't expect Rodney to lock him in his quarters for it."

"Yeah, Sheppard wasn't too happy about that," said Mysterious Lemoner 4.

"_I_ didn't expect McKay to plant security cameras everywhere," said Mysterious Lemoner 2, the shrugged. "Of course, I've disable them all."

"Yes, well done on that," congratulated Mysterious Lemoner 1. "Now, who hung the lemon in Rodney's lab?"

"That was me," admitted Mysterious Lemoner 3. "Sorry, about waking everyone up I didn't think he'd scream like that through his radio."

Mysterious Lemoner 1 nodded, then looked around the room. "Does everyone have some new ideas?"

"A few," said Mysterious Lemoner 3.

"Yeah, me too," agreed Mysterious Lemoner 4.

"I've already begun my next plan," replied Mysterious Lemoner 2.

Mysterious Lemoner 1 glanced at Mysterious Lemoner 3. "And none of these will wake anyone up in the middle of the night?"

"No," assured Mysterious Lemoner 3.

"Good. Did you know Rodney's actually saying that this is attempted murder?" asked Mysterious Lemoner 1.

Mysterious Lemoner 2 sniggered.

* * *

The next morning McKay burst into Weir's office holding a computer. "Elizabeth!"

Weir stood up. "Yes?"

"Watch this!" snapped McKay, turning the computer screen to face her. "I set these cameras up yesterday afternoon."

Weir stared at him. "Cameras? Why did you set up cameras?"

"To find who's putting lemons everywhere," McKay told her as if it were terribly obvious. "This is the film from the camera watching the generator that was powering my cameras."

McKay pressed play.

At first Weir simply found herself looking at a naquadah generator, then things started to get strange. A large piece of black cardboard waddled into the room. Weir blinked in surprise before realising that there was someone behind the cardboard, they were holding the cardboard up against them as a shield from the camera; Weir could see the black gloves holding it.

The person with the cardboard shield went right up to the generator and reached out to it, then the screen went black.

McKay took his computer back. "They disabled the naquadah generator! Then they disabled all my cameras! They left me this camera to mock me, I'm sure of it!"

"Oh." Weir looked at her head of science. "Rodney, you can't just go putting cameras everywhere. I'm sorry, but you don't have the right to spy on everyone, even if there are lemons appearing around the city. If you feel you need a camera watching your lab and your quarters by all means go right ahead, but since John came to me yesterday evening asking why there was a new security camera watching his quarters I'm guessing you put them all over the city. I need you to take them down."

"Maybe I wasn't clear," grumbled McKay. "I don't need to take them down, not only did the person disable my cameras, they stole them. All of them! And do you wan t to know what I found in place of the top of my naquadah generator?"

Weir was pretty sure she knew the answer. "A lemon?"

"Exactly! Except it came with a note!" announced McKay.

Weir raised her eyebrows. "Really? What did it say?"

"It said," began McKay, gathering his dignity, "quite clearly: _'To Meredith R. McKay. Please enjoy this lemon. From Mysterious Lemoner 2.'_!"

"I see," replied Weir, trying very hard to keep a straight face. "Does that mean there's two of these people?"

"Or more!" complained McKay. "It takes a group to get lemons to the city and then put them in place I will find them! Did you see the basket in the mess hall?!"

"Yes I did. Actually, I used one to put lemon juice on my pancakes. Though I did wonder what had happened to the apples." Weir immediately realised that she'd said the wrong thing.

"You, you _used_ one?! All the lemons you find must stay untouched! I'm going to start getting Zelenka to take fingerprints off them, under my supervision of course, I can't trust him on the best of days."

Weir felt that McKay needed reminding of something. "Rodney, you can't get Zelenka to do anything for the next two days."

McKay scowled. "Oh come on! You've got to be kidding! Sheppard didn't seriously get you to agree to that!"

Weir gave him the look. "You locked him in his quarters for most of yesterday without any way of contacting anyone."

"I thought he was planting lemons in the city! He even mentioned lemon meringue pie before it appeared in the mess hall!"

"John wasn't too happy when you woke him up in the middle of the night when that first lemon appeared," pointed out Weir. "I don't think he's doing this, but you still locked him in his quarters, so for two days you're working on whatever Zelenka tells you to."

"It's more like one and a half days now," muttered McKay and left her office wondering if he'd be allowed to take the next 48 hours off.

* * *

**A/N: **Now, comparing this story to others i've writen it still has some sanity.... i think it'll lose that around about next chapter. Please review, and now that you all know that there are five lemoners, any more guesses? Keep in mind that one of them is Earth based. :)


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: **I'll be trying to mention as many charaters that have been in the show (and aren't dead) so you have everyone to suspect as Mysterious Lemoners. :) I'm proud of this chapter, so please enjoy!

**CHAPTER SIX**

Sheppard walked into McKay's lab, which for once appeared to be a lemon free zone.

"What's so important you couldn't tell me over the radio?" asked Sheppard, leaning on the doorframe.

McKay waved a security camera. "This. I didn't want to say anything over the radio, who knows who could be listening."

Sheppard smirked. "You're paranoid."

"Huh. Yes, but I have good reason for it," claimed McKay. "Anyway, this is one of the security cameras I put around the city."

"_You _put that camera outside my quarters?" questioned Sheppard. "I should've known."

"Ah, I thought I'd told you about the cameras?"

"No."

"Oh. Well I placed them all around the city to catch the Mysterious Lemoners," explained McKay.

Sheppard frowned at him. "'Mysterious Lemoners'?"

McKay waved his hand impatiently. "That's what the people with the lemons are called themselves, they left this note by the naquadah generator I was using to power the cameras. They also disabled the generator."

He passed Sheppard the note.

Sheppard read it. "Mysterious Lemoner 2, more then one of them, huh? Why didn't you have a camera watching the generator?"

"I did!" complained McKay. "It's the only one of my cameras they let me keep." McKay pointed to the camera he was holding. "I found this on a console in the control room, all it's information's been wiped off."

"Figures," said Sheppard walking over to the desk where another camera sat. "This the one that was in the control room?"

McKay shook his head. "No, that's I new one I was making."

Sheppard picked it up.

"Don't-!" shouted McKay urgently.

Something small, yellow and roughly oval shaped flew across from the other side of the room and collided with Sheppard's head. The lemon then rolled under the desk.

"-touch it," finished McKay. "Seriously, now who's paranoid? It had a string attached to it, obviously booby-trapped."

Sheppard, looking slightly dazed, put the camera back on the desk. "You could have mentioned-"

The second the lemon touched the desk, more lemons came hurtling across the room one after the other, Sheppard attempted to duck them.

"Ow!"

McKay took one look at the flying lemons and retreated behind an Ancient machine. Finally the thuds stopped and McKay slowly stood up. He saw Sheppard cautiously poking his head out from under the desk. Once the colonel realised that there were no more lemons he stood up too.

"Right," declared Sheppard, lemon juice trickling down one cheek. "This has got to stop."

McKay glanced nervously around his lab. "Yes, I would have to agree with you there."

* * *

"Elizabeth," complained Sheppard. "They were being catapulted across the room!"

Weir looked between him and McKay and finally to Carson, who'd come to see what all the fuss was about. Carson gave her a helpless look, well there wasn't exactly much he could do about flying lemons. Weir turned back to Sheppard and McKay. "I'm sorry, I just don't know what I can do about it. Rodney, I've given you my permission to have cameras watched your quarters and lab. That should prevent people from installing catapults, or at least let you catch the person doing it."

"It was more like one of those machines that spit out baseballs then a catapult," corrected McKay. "And the trigger for it was one of the cameras I was working on!"

"Maybe you should look carefully at anything you're working on before you touch it," suggested Weir. "That way you could deal with the problem before it actually happens."

"She does have a point, lads," agreed Carson. He'd had McKay come wailing to him before the scientist had demanded that Carson come and speak with Weir with him, McKay had been hoping for Carson to side with him.

"I did!" protested McKay, giving Carson a withering look. "I'd seen that it was booby-trapped. Sheppard picked it up before I'd finished telling him not to!"

Sheppard scowled. "It wasn't my fault, I hardly expected it to be a trigger to catapult lemons across the room!"

"But if you'd listen to me before picking it up!" argued McKay.

"I was already picking it up as you were speaking!"

Carson exchanged a look with Weir.

"Gentlemen!" called Weir and they both turned to look at her. "Thank you. Rodney, you should set up those cameras and let me know if you get another note. But if you do find something else that's booby-trapped, disable it before anyone can accidentally trigger."

"Yeah, Meredith," muttered Sheppard.

McKay glared at him. "Funny. Elizabeth, what if they disable my generator again?"

Weir smiled. "You have my permission to connect them directly to the cities main power grid, on the condition that you know you won't damage it in any way."

"Of course I won't!" snapped McKay irritably, while Carson looked at him doubtfully.

"Sure," agreed Sheppard, "just like you wouldn't blow up most of a solar system."

Weir raised her eyebrows at him.

McKay rounded on him. "Oh come on! You're blaming me for being hit by those lemons, aren't you?"

"Yep."

McKay turned back to Weir. "I won't damage it."

"You'd better not," agreed Carson. "I need power in my infirmary."

"Well, if you're sure you can use it," said Weir to McKay. "But if we have a black out you may find yourself following Zelenka's orders for a very long time."

"Fine," grumbled McKay. "But if the Mysterious Lemoners damage it you can't blame me."

* * *

**A/N:** Please Review!


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N:** Sorry this is late, I was busy yesterday. Oh, and keep in mind this is a purely humor story- don't take it seriously in any way.

Please enjoy this chapter. :)

**CHAPTER SEVEN**

"What," asked Teyla, staring at the Stargate, "is _that_?"

Ronon stared at the 'gate as well. "Which 'that'?"

Teyla decided that he had a valid point. She had been talking about the bag of yellow somethings hanging from the Stargate but she could just as easily been talking about the yellow streamers that were wrapped around the 'gate.

Chuck glanced up at her and Ronon. "Oh, someone did some redecorating last night. I've called Lorne and some Marines to take it down before the next scheduled check in."

"Is that a bag of lemons?" questioned Teyla.

Chuck squinted at the 'gate. "Looks that way. Wouldn't be too surprising with all the other lemons that are appearing around the city."

"Yeah, McKay's not happy," said Ronon.

Before Chuck or Teyla could reply, Major Lorne, Lieutenant Cadman and two Marines entered the control room. Cadman took one look at the 'gate and started laughing.

Lorne considered the new decoration. "Well, it definitely adds a different colour to this place."

"It certainly does," agreed Chuck.

Cadman turned to him. "Has McKay seen it?"

Chuck shook his head. "No. He hasn't been in here yet today, too busy following Zelenka's orders."

"You should let him see it before you take it down," suggested Ronon.

"I am not sure that is wise," Teyla told him, eyeing the 'gate again.

Cadman sniggered. "No, I think it's a great idea."

"Yeah, I agree," said Lorne. "Chuck, call him in here."

Chuck activated communications. "Dr McKay, report to the control room immediately."

"_Why?" _asked McKay over his radio.

"It's important," replied Chuck.

"_Fine, but the only reason I'm coming is because I don't like fetching Zelenka's coffee for him,"_ huffed McKay.

Teyla was still staring at the 'gate. "I do not understand how someone could have done this completely unnoticed."

"Wouldn't've been that hard at night," replied Ronon. "Less people around."

"Nah, there's a minimum of three people in the control at any time during the night," Lorne told him. "Would've been tricky."

"They'd been drugged," called one of the other technicians. "Told me this morning, said that they woke up and the Stargate was covered in all that."

"Drugged?" asked Lorne. "Well, that's one way to put up lemons unseen. Little harsh though."

"Oh, so now everyone's talking about lemons!" complained McKay as he walked in to the control room with Sheppard.

Sheppard took in the very yellow Stargate and burst out laughing.

McKay stared at him. "What?"

Sheppard gestured in the general direction of the Stargate, but was laughing too hard to actually say anything.

"What?!" exclaimed McKay, staring in astonishment at the 'gate. "How did…?" He rounded on the crowd. "Who did this?!"

Chuck shrugged. "No-one knows. The night shift people in the control room were all drugged."

McKay glared at him and then looked back at Sheppard. "It's not funny!"

"Yeah, it is," Sheppard told him, grinning. "There's lemons hanging from the Stargate!"

Weir walked into the control room. "What's going on here?"

"Well, ma'am," replied Lorne. "McKay just saw the new Stargate decoration."

Weir spared the 'gate a quick glance. "Didn't I ask someone to take that down?"

"Yes, ma'am. That's what we're here for," said Cadman.

Ronon nodded. "They just thought McKay should see it first."

"Don't tell me that's the only reason you called me in here," grumbled McKay, remembering that Chuck had said it was 'important'.

"Chuck thought it important that you see it," put in Teyla, confirming McKay's suspicions.

"Hey, it wasn't my idea to call you here," Chuck assured McKay.

"It was a good call," Sheppard informed him. "It would've been a waste of effort from whoever did this if McKay hadn't seen it."

McKay scowled at him.

"Alright," said Weir. "We've all seen it now. The next scheduled dial in is in twenty minutes. Take it down please."

"Yes, ma'am," agreed Lorne and led Cadman and the two marines down the stairs to the 'gate.

"Elizabeth!" called McKay, looking carefully at his watch to highlight his point. "I take it I can stop reporting to Zelenka now?"

Weir considered this. "I don't know if it's been forty-eight hours yet, Rodney."

McKay scoffed. "Of course it has. You've already extended it by two hours."

"No, I haven't," Weir told him.

"Yes, you did. It was up two hours ago, but you extended it. Remember?"

"No, Rodney, you came to me two hours early," Weir reminded him.

"Fine, but _now_ I don't have to report to Zelenka, right?" asked McKay hopefully.

"That's right," Weir confirmed reluctantly.

"Oh, thank God," breathed McKay. "I'm going to my lab to work on my security cameras."

McKay made for the nearest transporter and headed towards his lab. Zelenka had been keeping him on other _lesser_ projects or McKay knew he would have already finished his new set of cameras. This time he'd decided to make more then he actually needed, just in case.

It occurred to him that Zelenka could have purposely been stalling the creation of his new cameras. Could Zelenka be a Mysterious Lemoner? It was undoubtably a possibility. Maybe a camera in Zelenka's lab as well would be useful…

McKay was still considering this option when he saw the doorway to his lab and stopped.

There was a string of lemons hanging from the top of the doorframe to the floor and some of the lemons letters had been carved. First an M, then an E until if you read down the lemon chain you would read- MER'S LAB.

McKay gritted his teeth, he'd been working in his lab on one of Zelenka's lesser projects when he'd been called to the control room.

Someone had waited until he'd left then strung lemons from his doorframe. This was war.

* * *

Once again the Mysterious Lemoners entered their secret meeting room at 9pm.

Mysterious Lemoner 2 looked around the room, grinning. "Who decorated the Stargate?"

"Me," replied Mysterious Lemoner 3, then looked thoughtful. "It's a shame he had to be called in to see it."

Mysterious Lemoner 4 nodded. "True."

"Mmm," agreed Mysterious Lemoner 1, "and while we're on the subject of the latest lemon pranks, exactly who set the lemons to go flying across Rodney's lab?

"Ah, that was me," admitted Mysterious Lemoner 4. "It didn't exactly go to plan, did it?"

"Not exactly, no," Mysterious Lemoner 1 said. "Remember, the point of this competition is to be the one to annoy _Rodney_ with lemons so much that he cracks and either gives the whole expedition a lecture on it or complains to General Landry. That doesn't mean targeting someone other then Rodney with the lemons."

"Yeah, sorry. I hope Sheppard doesn't fond out that was me," commented Mysterious Lemoner 4.

Mysterious Lemoner 3 snorted. "Yeah, I hope you have a good hiding spot if he does!"

Mysterious Lemoner 4 frowned, looking slightly worried.

"The whole flying lemons thing would have been pretty funny to watch," mused Mysterious Lemoner 3 thoughtfully.

"True," said Mysterious Lemoner 2 wistfully. "It would have been even funnier if they'd hit McKay. Oh, and since I'm planning on writing more notes can I just sign them Lemoner 2? Mysterious Lemoner takes longer to write, which will be a pain if I'm in a hurry."

Mysterious Lemoner 3 nodded. "Good point."

"Yes," agreed Mysterious Lemoner 1. "Individually lets call ourselves Lemoner whatever-number-you-happen-to-be."

"Yeah, and together we are the Mysterious Lemoners!" put in Lemoner 4.

They all sniggered.

"Any news from Lemoner 5?" asked Lemoner 2.

"No," said Lemoner 3. "Not yet, we haven't had another dial in with Earth since before our last meeting."

"Well then, lets get back out there and see if we can annoy Rodney further," suggested Lemoner 1.

The four Atlantis based Mysterious Lemoners stood up and left their meeting room, ready to plant more lemons around the city.

* * *

**A/N: **Review and guess who the lemoners are! :) Next chapter will be longer and crazier.


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N:** Here's chapter eight. Warning: It's even crazier then the last two chapters.

**CHAPTER EIGHT**

"LEMONS!!!!! ARGH!!!!!"

Sheppard got a distinct sense of déjà vu as the scream woke him up. He groaned and glanced at his watch; it was one o'clock in the morning.

"Figures," grumbled Sheppard to himself. It was undoubtably McKay screaming over his radio about some kind of lemony substance. Sheppard turned off his radio and rolled over, intending to go back to sleep. Knowing the Lemoners, it wouldn't be anything serious.

"AARGGHH! MOVING LEMONS!! HELP! HELP!!!"

Sheppard realised that it couldn't possibly be over his radio, but it was definitely McKay's hysterical screams. Again. Why did these Mysterious Lemon people have to choose nights when he was actually sleeping to leave surprise lemons near McKay? Better still, they could stop leaving lemons, it was getting on Sheppard's nerves.

"AAARGH!"

This scream was much closer and Sheppard could also hear a faint rumbling sound from somewhere outside his quarters. Strange.

Deciding that he'd better investigate, just in case, Sheppard swung out of bed and got dressed. Somehow it didn't seem to be a good idea to leave his quarters wearing panda pyjamas. Sheppard opened the door to see McKay running down the hall with what looked like a tidal wave of lemons not too far behind him.

Well, that explained the rumbling.

It took Sheppard a few moments to realise that it wasn't actually a wave of lemons but in fact a modified MALP with lemons glued to every available inch of space. It was also shooting something that looked suspiciously like lemon juice at McKay from modified water guns mounted on various places on the MALP.

McKay ran straight into Sheppard's quarters in an attempt to get away from the MALP, which appeared to be chasing him.

"Not in here!" snapped Sheppard in alarm as the strange looking MALP changed course to follow McKay.

Sheppard hurriedly tried to close the door, nothing happened.

Sheppard cursed as the MALP entered his quarters after McKay and dived to one side so it didn't run him over. McKay hid behind Sheppard's bed. The MALP, which had to have some kind of radar for following McKay, evidently didn't have the same technology for detecting low-lying objects and ploughed straight into the bed.

It's modifications had apparently included power (as well as lemons) because it pushed the bed with it as it continued forwards.

"McKay! Get out!" yelled Sheppard urgently in the general direction of the scientist, hoping that if McKay left quickly the both he and the scientist might get away without being hit by the MALP in such a confined area and the damages to his quarters might be minimal.

McKay was already getting out from behind the bed in a desperate attempt to not be squished against the wall, which in Sheppard's opinion was a good move. Then he ran behind Sheppard, giving no indication that he'd heard the colonel.

Faced with several tons of MALP and lemons squirting what probably _was_ lemon juice at him and moving at a speed a normal MALP never could have reached, Sheppard turned and ran from his quarters, dragging McKay with him. Frankly, being run over or having McKay run over by a stray MALP in the middle of the night didn't sound like fun.

"HELP!" screamed McKay in Sheppard's ear. "IT'S FOLLOWING ME!"

"DON'T YELL IN MY EAR!" Sheppard roared back, in McKay's ear. Then he shoved his teammate down the corridor, hoping they'd get far enough away before the MALP left his quarters.

Unfortunately the MALP had already squeezed through the doorway after them and was charging at McKay again, with Sheppard between it and McKay.

McKay immediately started running again, puffing and panting. Sheppard threw himself to the side as it almost hit him… and barrelled into Woolsey, knocking them both to the ground.

It occurred to Sheppard (as he hit the floor) that the last thing he'd heard Woolsey hadn't been on Atlantis.

"Colonel Sheppard?" asked Woolsey, sitting up as the MALP disappeared around the corner. A figure in black clothing (with a ninja mask and gloves) holding a remote dashed after it.

Sheppard, also sitting up, opened his mouth to yell at the person, realised he was too late adn that with someone controlling it McKay wasn't going to actually get run over by the MALP, and so he stared at Woolsey instead. "This is not normal. I swear, definitely not normal."

Woolsey looked at him irritably. "MALPs decorated with lemons charging around chasing people in the middle of the night? No, I didn't think it was."

"Uh," replied Sheppard, who'd actually been referring to IOA members randomly being on Atlantis. Then he nodded. "Of course not. We've never had anything like that happen before, the whole, uh, MALP thing is a completely, errm, new experience."

"And the lemons?" questioned Woolsey.

"Obviously the MALP crashed through the mess hall," Sheppard told him, completely straight faced. "The lemons must've stuck to it."

Woolsey looked at him suspiciously. "I see. What about the person following it?"

"Oh! That was…" Sheppard hesitated, doing some fast thinking. "That was one of the cities resident ninjas, they were here when we got here. Completely tame of course." Sheppard winced; definitely not the smartest thing to say.

"Tame ninjas?" Woolsey repeated. "That have lived for ten thousand years?"

"Yep, they're robotic ninjas of course. They're what the Ancients tried after replicators." Sheppard wished he'd had a proper night's sleep before having to do fast thinking.

"I see," said Woolsey again, giving Sheppard a look that suggested he thought there was something wrong with this lieutenant colonel being military commander on Atlantis.

"Well, there you go then." Sheppard decided it was time to change the subject, he climbed to his feet. "Weren't you on Earth?"

"I was asked to come and do a surprise evaluation," Woolsey replied, still giving Sheppard a strange look. "Last time I was here to evaluate you, you had two hundred wraith who were turned into humans stranded on a planet so I was unable to assess the normal proceedings, that and I was here mainly to assess Dr Weir's capability as leader of this expedition."

Sheppard wasn't sure if there was such a thing as normal proceedings in the Pegasus Galaxy, but if there was Woolsey had come at the wrong time to see it. The Mysterious Lemoners were not considered normal, life-sucking aliens were normal, but not Mysterious Lemoners.

"Oh," commented Sheppard lightly. "Welcome to Atlantis."

"Thank you colonel," said Woolsey, looking slightly more comfortable with the conversation now and even managing a smile.

Sheppard smiled back, hoping Woolsey didn't think he was too crazy. "Yes, well. Now if you'll excuse me, I have an assessment of my own to carry out. A damage assessment."

Sheppard stalked back into his quarters and closed the door behind him, a little irritated that the door hadn't closed on the MALP. He'd have to ask McKay about that later, assuming the MALP had stopped chasing him.

* * *

"Rodney, I've _told _you, there's nothing I can do," Weir told the fuming scientist.

"Call another meeting!" snapped McKay. "We have to come up with something, this can't continue! That thing chased me for hours last night!"

"I can't call another meeting," said Weir patiently, knowing from reports that the MALP had actually chased him for less then ten minutes. "I was about to announce it this morning; Woolsey has come to assess our day-to-day procedures and make sure that everything is running smoothly. That means he will be attending _all_ senior staff meetings."

That threw McKay off for a moment. "Woolsey? When did he get here?"

Weir sighed. "Last night. It's meant to be a surprise visit to make sure that we didn't have any time to alter anything before hand."

McKay frowned, then his face lit up. "Maybe he will discourage the Mysterious Lemoners!"

"I hope so," Weir replied. "I can't even imagine the IOA's reaction if he takes a report of how lemons have been appearing around the city back to them."

"If this makes the Mysterious Lemoners stop I'll never complain about the IOA again," declared McKay. "Did you know that the MALP was shooting water coloured with yellow food dye at me to make me believe it was lemon juice?"

"Yes, you've told me," Weir reminded him. "Several times."

McKay scowled, just as Woolsey entered Weir's office.

"Is there a problem?" Woolsey asked.

"Uh," responded McKay unhelpfully.

"No, Rodney's just a little late handing in his latest mission report," lied Weir smoothly.

"Right," said Woolsey.

"Yes, yes," agreed McKay, a beat too late. "You've gotta hate those pesky mission reports, don't you?"

"Yes, but they are part of protocol," Woolsey reminded him, with a disapproving look.

Weir gave McKay an irritated look.

"Ah, right. Protocol." McKay realised it was probably time to leave. "I'll go and, you know, finish it now."

Woolsey frowned slightly as he watched McKay hurry out of the office.

Weir offered a smile. "Did you want to speak to me?"

"As a matter of fact, yes," replied Woolsey, glancing into the control to make sure the no one was listening. "I was heading to my quarters last night when I encountered something… odd."

"Odd is relative in the Pegasus Galaxy," Weir told him.

"Mmm, well." Woolsey cleared his throat, then a thought occurred to him. "Ah, Sheppard isn't late with _his_ mission report, is he?"

Weir decided it would be getting off on the wrong foot to lie twice the first time Woolsey came to her asking questions. "He is, actually."

"I see. And have you asked him to come to your office?" asked Woolsey, shifting uncomfortably.

Weir wondered where this was leading. "Not yet. I decided it was best to speak to him and Rodney separately, so they couldn't share excuses."

It occurred to Weir that she'd just lied again.

Woolsey, however, didn't notice. Instead he looked relieved. "Good, good. It's just I would rather speak to you about this without him hearing."

Weir mentally went through a list of what Sheppard could have possibly done wrong in the short time since Woolsey had arrived in Atlantis. "Okay, then. What's happened?"

"When I was walking to my quarters I…" Woolsey trailed off, and hesitated before continuing. "I saw a very strange MALP."

"A MALP?" repeated Weir, with a sinking feeling. "Was it covered in lemons?"

"Yes. You've heard about it then?" Woolsey was clearly pleased he wouldn't have to explain the whole thing to her.

"Yes, I have," Weir assured him. "I have some people chasing it up."

Woolsey hesitated again. "Have you spoken to Sheppard about it?"

"No," Weir hoped Sheppard hadn't explained anything about the lemons to Woolsey. Though, judging by Woolsey expression whatever the colonel had to do with the MALP, it wasn't good. "Should I have?"

"I'm not so sure about that myself. I ran into him while the MALP was around, or more accurately; he ran into me while he was trying not to be run over. He seemed a little… what I mean to say is, is it possibly that after living in this galaxy under stress for a long period of time could have made him, uh, lose his sanity?" questioned Woolsey.

Weir wondered what on Earth, or rather, Lantea, Sheppard had said. "Why do you ask?"

"After he accidentally ran into me, we saw a person dressed in black run after the MALP with a remote control," Woolsey explained. "When I asked Sheppard about the whole thing, he gave me a very vague explanation about the MALP and lemons."

"Did he now?" interrupted Weir, frowning slightly.

"Yes," confirmed Woolsey. "Something about having no idea about the MALP but to be covered in lemons it must have crashed through the mess hall, but that wasn't the strangest part. You see, then I asked him about the person following it.

Weir desperately hoped Sheppard had kept his mouth shut about the Mysterious Lemoners. "And what did he say?"

"He said that it was… a ninja," announced Woolsey, Weir tried (and failed) to stop her mouth falling open. Woolsey continued, "One of Atlantis's _tame_ ninjas, I believe."

"Oh, well, maybe he was just tired. I'm sure he's fine." Weir inwardly sighed in relief, though if that was Sheppard's best on-the-spot thinking then he needed to work on it. Now she had to repress a fit of laughter. _Tame ninjas!_

Woolsey looked doubtful. "As long as you think you have the matter in hand."

_Not exactly,_ thought Weir. She nodded at Woolsey. "I'll make sure no more MALPs are used like that again, and I'll speak to Sheppard."

"Ah… good," replied Woolsey and hurried off as if he was worried that the colonel in question would arrive at any moment with more ninja claims.

* * *

**A/N: **Please review and tell me what you think of this latest craziness. Not to mention the tame ninjas…


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: **Okay, here's chapter nine.

**CHAPTER NINE**

Woolsey walked up to McKay's lab to begin his assessment of Atlantis's science department. After all, what could be a better place to start then talking to the head of science? As he entered McKay's lab he saw McKay sitting at his desk amongst many security cameras.

"Updating Atlantis's security system?" questioned Woolsey mildly.

"Hmm?" McKay looked up and saw Woolsey. As Woolsey's words sunk in a guilty expressed flicked over McKay's face. "Uh, yes, I am. Y'know; new security cameras."

Woolsey nodded. "Are there any other projects you've been working on lately?"

McKay scoffed. " Are you kidding me? There are dozens of invaluable projects that I work on everyday!"

"Right," agreed Woolsey, giving the genius a disapproving look. Woolsey didn't appreciate McKay's habit of being condescending. "Care to name a few of them?"

"I can do better then that," grumbled McKay, reaching for his computer. Then he saw Woolsey's disapproving look and remembered that he was being assessed. "Ah, here, I'll show you some simulations of the project I've been working on to increase the power output for a Puddle Jumper."

"That sounds like a definite advantage considering the Daedalus is only here every six weeks," Woolsey replied, feeling slightly happier with McKay's tone of voice.

"Yes," said McKay briefly, it seemed best to just agree with Woolsey.

McKay entered his password into the computer and was about to bring up the slideshow on the Puddle Jumper's power when a pop-up window appeared, covering the screen. It was blank.

"Huh," commented McKay confusedly. No pop-ups should have been able to make it to his computer.

"What is it?" questioned Woolsey.

"This pop-up," complained McKay. "It shouldn't have been able to get on to this computer."

As soon as McKay had finished speaking an animated lemon with arms, legs, eyes and a mouth appeared in the middle of the screen.

"What…?" asked Woolsey, staring at the lemon.

"Oh no," said McKay, trying to close the pop-up.

On the screen the lemon started to dance.

"I'm too sexy for your cat," sung the lemon. "Too sexy for your cat. Poor pussy, poor pussy cat."

Woolsey and McKay both stared openly at the singing and dancing lemon in the middle of McKay's computer screen.

"I'm to sexy for Atlantis, too sexy for Atlantis. Iratus bugs and preymantis," continued the lemon. "I'm a model you know what I mean and I do my little turn on the catwalk…"

"Dr McKay, what is this?" Woolsey turned to McKay for an answer as the lemon continued to sing the chorus.

"Uh, well, it's a singing and dancing lemon with the modified lyrics to _I'm Too Sexy_…" McKay didn't know what else to say. Honestly he was furious with the Lemoners intruding on his laptop, but he saw the sense in Weir not wanting Woolsey to know about them… even if they had insulted his cat.

"I'm too sexy for a shirt," the lemon sung. "Too sexy for a shirt, so sexy it hurts. And I'm too sexy for this lab."

The lemon disappeared and the pop-up window closed.

McKay scowled at his computer.

Woolsey looked at him suspiciously. "Did you do that?"

McKay closed his eyes and counted to ten. It was not a good idea to shout at IOA members that were assessing you. "Of course I didn't. I'm deathly allergic to citrus, why would I put a dancing and singing lemon on my own computer?"

* * *

Weir hurried into the conference room and stared around at SGA-1, Carson and Zelenka. "Rodney! I said we couldn't have a meeting! Remember Woolsey?"

McKay looked indignant. "I didn't call this meeting!"

Weir looked at him. "You didn't?"

"No, he didn't," Sheppard confirmed. "I did."

"_You _called this meeting?" asked Weir, hoping against hope that it wasn't because of the Lemoners. If Woolsey found out… "Why?"

Sheppard gave her a look. "Elizabeth, lately I have been woken up at 1am twice –and for no good reason- been almost run over by a MALP and had lemons flung across the room at me. Rodney's had more lemons then he can count appear where they shouldn't be and it's getting on our nerves. So I called a meeting."

Weir sighed. "_Woolsey's _here, I've been through this. A report from him to the SGC including the Mysterious Lemoners could lead to God knows what."

"Ah, well Rodney thinks he'll figure it out soon anyway," said Carson unhelpfully.

"Why?" asked Weir, turning to Rodney for an answer. "There was an animated dancing lemon on my computer, Woolsey saw it when I was showing him something," explained Rodney, looking annoyed.

Weir briefly closed her eyes. "He's going to think we're all crazy!" A thought occurred to her and she turned to Sheppard. "Particularly you."

Sheppard adopted an innocent look. "Actually he's pretty much left me alone so far."

Weir gave him the look. "Did it occur to you that that might have something to do with the 'tame ninjas'?"

"Oh," Sheppard said, looking down at the table. "Them. Hey, maybe I should've tried saying something like that sooner, then he'd have left me alone last time he was here too."

"Hmm," agreed McKay. "Not a bad idea…"

"Yes, it is a bad idea!" complained Weir. "John, he thinks you're crazy!"

"We live in Atlantis in another galaxy by choice," pointed out Zelenka, "He probably thinks us all crazy."

McKay pointed at Zelenka. "He actually does have a point there."

"Surely not?" asked Teyla, frowning.

"Yeah, I've seen him," replied Ronon. "He probably does think that."

"Besides, Elizabeth," said Sheppard. "I didn't call this meeting to be here all day. I just wanted to make it clear that me and Rodney have both decided we're sick of having lemons thrown at us. I'm going to help him catch the Lemoners."

McKay looked smug. "They can't hide forever."

"Okay," agreed Weir. "Just stay away from Woolsey and don't mention the tame ninjas again."

Ronon exchanged a glance with Teyla and Zelenka. They shrugged.

Carson saw them and guessed the reason. "Apparently John told him the Lemoners are tame ninjas. Goodness knows why."

John shrugged and chose not to reply.

"Do you have any new ideas of who the Lemoners are?" asked Zelenka.

Sheppard looked directly at Weir. "Oh, we have a few ideas."

* * *

**A/N: **Sheppard and McKay - the Lemoner hunters. Hehe. I thought you deserved to know one of the Lemoners, yes, Sheppard's pointed look at Weir had a base behind it. She is a Lemoner and well done for those people who guessed her, I left a few clues. She regularly calls expedition members by their first names... and so did Mysterious Lemoner 1. :D


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N:** Sorry this is late, I've been busy. Anyway, another Lemoner to be revealed in the chapter!

**CHAPTER TEN**

Sheppard strode into Weir's office. "Hey, I hear the Daedalus has arrived."

Weir looked at him carefully. "Yes, it came out of hyperspace an hour ago."

"An hour ago? Damn." Sheppard looked thoughtful." Can I see the list of supplies it brought?"

"Okay," agreed Weir, inwardly wincing. "He knew there'd be a list of lemon products. She flicked through a file until she found the list of supplies, then she handed it to him.

Sheppard smiled. "Thanks."

He sat down on the edge of Weir's desk and skimmed through it, nodding to himself. Weir wondered if he was simply rubbing it in that he knew she was a Lemoner.

"Anything particular you're looking for?" asked Weir innocently.

"Yeah… here we go." Sheppard sat up straighter. "Lemon lolly pops, packet lemon cake, more lemon power bars. Definitely one on Earth, not Woolsey though – he likes rules too much. Maybe a member of SG-1?" Sheppard looked questionally at Weir.

"I take it you're talking about the Mysterious Lemoners?" inquired Weir, pretending she hadn't realised that the question had been directed at her. Playing dumb seemed to be the best option.

Sheppard grinned at her. "Yep. We know there's at least two on Atlantis, personally I think there's more, and looking at this-" Sheppard waved the list of supplies "-it confirms our suspicions that there's one on Earth."

"I see," replied Weir carefully.

"I know you do," Sheppard responded. "At least I've managed to convince Rodney that this isn't a plot to kill him."

Weir sighed, Sheppard was definitely here simply to remind her that he knew what she was up to. "Rodney's citrus allergy is actually incredibly mild; I asked Carson a while ago."

"I know it is, I asked him too," Sheppard informed her. "Rodney thinks Carson's a Lemoner, I don't. Somehow I don't think he's enjoying Rodney bothering him whenever a lemon appears. But hey, I guess we'll find out soon enough."

"Okay then," said Weir hoping that Sheppard hadn't meant that he and McKay were close to finding out the remaining Lemoners. If they did she just hoped McKay didn't hold his grudge for too long. "Good luck."

Sheppard grinned at her again and handed her back the list of supplies. "Thanks," he repeated. "Oh, and when find out who catapulted the lemons at me I'm gonna kick their ass."

* * *

Weir spoke through an open channel as she looked down at the video feed showing General Hank Landry, General Jack O'Neill and Colonel Samantha Carter. "The Daedalus has arrived and we've unloaded all our supplies."

Landry nodded. "Good, will Colonel Caldwell be heading straight back?"

Weir shook her head. "No, he wants to hang around for a few days."

"Well, tell him to take his time," said O'Neill. "It's not like we're fighting Priors here or anything."

Carter shot him a glance.

"I'm sure he'll appreciate the message," replied Weir, smiling to herself. He smile faded slightly as McKay and Sheppard came into the control room. The last thing she needed was McKay to complain to Landry now about the Lemoners. After all the whole Mysterious Lemoners thing was a competition to see who could make McKay complain to Earth or the entire expedition, if he did so now, it would be impossible to tell who'd made him crack.

To make matters worse a lemon swung across the room on a piece of string and impacted McKay's head with a soft thud. Unfortunately Landry, O'Neill and Carter had a live video feed of the Atlantis 'Gateroom. Two of them were now staring in surprise.

McKay was making a huge fuss of wriggling out of his jacket, once he got it off he hastily used to wipe of all traces of lemon.

O'Neill stared. "That was different."

"For us," Sheppard couldn't resist commenting, "not so much."

O'Neill just looked at him wearily.

"What _was_ that?" asked Landry, addressing the question to Weir.

"It was a lemon," snapped McKay before Weir could reply. Then he turned and glared at the screen. "Wasn't it, Sam?"

Weir watched as Landry and O'Neill turned to look questionally at Carter while McKay stalked off to the infirmary.

"Carter?" asked O'Neill accusingly.

"I don't know what he's talking about," Carter denied unconvincingly.

"Yeah," agreed Sheppard, "which is why you didn't even look surprised." He offered a smile and a somewhat lazily salute to the two generals and colonel and then left after McKay.

"_Carter_," repeated O'Neill more forcefully. "Care to explain."

Weir thought he looked slightly amused.

"Later," said Carter. "We haven't spoken to Woolsey about his progress report yet."

"He should be here any minute," put in Weir helpfully, hoping Woolsey wasn't going to report his opinion on Sheppard's state of mind.

* * *

Carson sighed. "Did you swallow any lemon juice?"

"Well, no," admitted McKay "But there was some one my face!"

"Yeah, one drip," said Sheppard as he walked in.

"Oh, haha very funny. I'll have you know that…" McKay stopped mid sentence and stared at one of the infirmary's walls. "How long has that been there?!"

Carson winced. "Bloody hell, hasn't anyone taken that down yet?"

Sheppard followed McKay's gaze and saw a painting had been placed on the wall. It was a very good painting… of a basket of lemons.

"How long has it been there?!" McKay demanded again.

"Since last night. Dr Biro said that she went to get coffee, came back, and there it was," Carson told him.

Sheppard studied the painting. "Nice detail, well painted."

McKay just glared at him.

* * *

**A/N: **Three lemoners left to reveal, and two or three chapters left... This has turned out to be a lot longer then I intended it to be! Well done on anyone who guessed Carter and please take a guess at the remaining Lemoners!


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N:** Sorry this is so massively late, I was busy and so told my plot bunnies to go away. Then when i needed them again they started stonewalling me. This is the second last chapter and another Lemoner will be revealled, in the last chapter i will reveal the remaining two.

**CHAPTER ELEVEN**

It was a lemon. Just one lemon, but it was surrounded by every kind of lemon sweet you could possibly imagine. The lemon also had a face carved into it.

McKay stared at the lemon. The lemon stared back.

"You can't win a staring contest with a lemon, Rodney," Sheppard informed him helpfully. "They don't blink."

McKay swung around to face him. "I don't care! It's another lemon! At least this time I might have caught a lemoner on my camera, but seriously how am I meant to work with this in my lab?"

Sheppard shrugged, resisting the urge to say 'it's just a lemon', which would definitely provoke a reaction from McKay. "Dunno. Though expect to see more of theses around-" Sheppard pointed towards the sweets "-there was a huge amount of lemon sherbet brought in on the Daedalus."

McKay scowled. "Whatever. I'm checking my camera."

McKay turned to his computer and began typing furiously. "I get a feed from each of my cameras on this computer. It was incredibly easy to achieve now that Elizabeth allowed me to wire the camera to the power grid, particularly because this computer is also connected to the power grid."

"Yeah," mused Sheppard thoughtfully. "I wonder why Elizabeth let you do that, maybe to throw us off thinking she was a lemoner."

"Hmm," commented McKay. "Why don't you ask her? Right, I've got the file ope-"

The computer screen flickered, then the lab lights flickered.

"McKay…" said Sheppard.

"Oh no," said McKay.

He'd barely finished speaking before the power cut completely and Atlantis was plunged into darkness. Then the back up lights came on.

"Oh crap," muttered Sheppard, looking around the dimly lit lab. "Elizabeth's gonna kill you."

"Maybe she rigged it to cut the power," suggested McKay a little hopefully. "Then she can't blame me."

"Nah, I don't think she rigged it," replied Sheppard, bursting McKay's bubble of hope. "I don't think she'd want the whole city on back up power. It was probably a lemoner who didn't know that you were using the cities main power grid."

"True. And I don't think Elizabeth would know how to rig it," observed McKay.

"That's a god point too."

There was a short pause.

McKay looked miserably at one of the dim lights. "I'm so screwed."

* * *

"Bloody hell!" Beckett stared around the semi-light infirmary. It was a good thing really important systems got back up power, such as lights (dim as they might be, it wouldn't do to be tripping over things). Carson spoke into his radio. "Control room, this is Beckett. I've lost main power in the infirmary."

Weir answered. _"We're lost main power all over the city, Carson. There doesn't seem to be any damage, Chuck says it just switched itself off. But we're running diagnostics just in case."_

"Why did it switch off?" asked Carson.

"_We don't know yet. I've called Rodney to the control room, he says he thinks he knows what caused it."_

"Okay, love. I'll come up too, I'm sure it'll be an interesting explanation."

"_I'm hoping for more then interesting, at least he should be able to tell us if its safe to turn it back on. Weir out."_

Carson sighed and put down the computer that had had the medical report he'd been working on. He hoped he hadn't just lost all the work he'd done on it and decided that in future he was going to make back ups of all documents on computers that weren't linked to Atlantis's power grid.

Once he got to the control room Carson found there was quite a crowd of people already there. Chuck, the other control room technician, McKay and Weir he'd been expecting. Yet Sheppard, Teyla, Zelenka, Ronon and Cadman were also there.

"-and it just shut down," McKay finished explaining something to Weir. "It wasn't my fault."

Sheppard nodded in agreement. "For once he's right, we both agree that the Lemoners set this up. I'm sure you'd be able to help with confirming that."

McKay sent her an evil look as everyone else in the control room turned to look at her. Carson sighed, he wondered what McKay and Sheppard were planning to do once they'd found out all the Mysterious Lemoners.

"I will look into it," Weir assured him, not trying to avoid the accusing looks of people who didn't appreciate being woken up at early hours in the morning and hadn't yet heard that she was a lemoner. Annoyingly at least one of her fellow Lemoners was also giving her an accusing look. "Meanwhile, Zelenka, is the power grid damaged?"

"Ah, well, according to this-" Zelenka gestured to a computer that had just finished running diagnostics "-the computer in Rodney's lad was rigged to simply switch off power, so no, it is not damaged."

"Didn't know you could get computers to do that," commented Ronon.

"Most can't, Rodney's is linked to the power grid," Zelenka told him. McKay scowled, Carson noticed he was standing at another control console.

"At least there's no damage," remarked Chuck. "It means it's safe to turn it back on again."

Chuck typed at his computer and the main (bright) lights came back on.

"Still kinda reckless to switch off the main power," commented Sheppard, keeping his tone light but looking at Weir.

Zelenka was looking down at his computer and, because he didn't see Sheppard looking at Weir, he assumed the colonel was talking to him. Zelenka shook his head. "Reckless? No, not really. It was a simple rig and no problem to switch back on once we'd realised there was no damage."

Weir raised an eyebrow at Sheppard and McKay.

Sheppard rolled his eyes.

"Well, if that's sorted out, I'll get back to the infirmary," said Carson and made for the infirmary hoping to recover his report. He was surprised when Sheppard and McKay followed him.

"South pier," announced McKay out of the blue.

Sheppard nodded. "Figures. There's a nice view."

"What?" asked Carson in confusion.

"It's where Lorne is," McKay told him. "While Weir and Zelenka discussed the power I was working at a console so it would locate Lorne's subcutaneous transmitter as soon as the main power came back on."

"Right," replied Carson. "May I ask why?"

McKay gave an evil grin. "He's a lemoner."

"Oh? How did you work that out?" questioned Carson.

Sheppard shrugged. "He paints, he's ordered painting supplies to be put on the Daedalus before, and since that painting that was in the infirmary wasn't brought here on the Daedalus – I checked – it meant it must have been painted on Atlantis."

"So we're heading to the south pier to tell him that we know he's a lemoner," added McKay triumphantly.

* * *

Lorne stood back and looked critically at his painting of the night sky. The moon didn't quite stand out enough…

"Having fun, major?"

Lorne almost dropped his paint brush as he started and swung around to face who'd spoken. McKay and Sheppard stood in the doorway. Sheppard had a lopsided smile on his face, McKay just had a plain evil look.

Lorne gulped. "Sir? McKay? What brings you here?"

"Well I wanted to tell you that the painting in the infirmary was very good, well done," congratulated Sheppard.

"Personally I prefer that one," said McKay, the evil look not leaving his face.

"Oh, um…" Lorne wasn't sure what to say, though it was very obvious that they knew he was a Lemoner. Lorne wished he hadn't painted the lemon. "I guess this is more detailed then the other one…"

Sheppard grinned. "Yeah, guess it is. And you can tell Elizabeth that we'd like to find out who planted which lemon."

"Not that it makes that much difference to me," added McKay. "But Sheppard got particularly annoyed at certain lemons."

Sheppard smiled. "Anyway, keep on with your painting."

McKay gave Lorne an evil smile before he and Sheppard left.

Lorne felt like borrowing McKay's saying of; 'I'm so screwed'.

* * *

**A/N: **Lorne. I thought i made that too obvious from chapter ten- Lorne paints in the episode Sunday. Lorne is Lemoner 4 and he rigged the lemons that flew across Rodney's lab and ended up hitting John, so that's why he thinks he's screwed. Again, i'm sorry i took so long to post, the next chapter should be up soon, if it isn't up in a week, then please send me a PM and i'll make sure it's posted quickly.


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N:** This is it, the last chapter. It's a lot longer then previous chapters!

**CHAPTER TWELVE**

McKay- standing just inside the door of his lab- looked suspiciously around. "I swear I saw something yellow."

"This whole lemoner thing has made you even more paranoid then usual," Sheppard replied, walking past him into the lab.

"Paranoia is healthy," stated McKay, taking a cautious step forward and closing the lab door behind him. "It prepares you for the worst to happen. And I'd feel happier if I knew how many Lemoners there are."

Sheppard shrugged. "I reckon there's one more, they can't be too big a group or they'd never manage to have group meetings."

"True," said McKay. "But I think there are two or three more, this feels like a conspiracy of five or six people."

Sheppard rolled his eyes. "A conspiracy. Right."

Outside the lab standing to one side of the door were Lemoners 2 and 3. Lemoner 2 was listening to the conversation inside the lab, and trying not to snigger. Lemoner 3 had a computer and was finishing wiring it up to the lab doors control crystals. With a wire connected to each crystal Lemoner 3 gave Lemoner 2 a thumbs up.

Lemoner 2 lent forward and whispered. "What's the deal with the control crystals?"

"I can program them to keep the door locked for a minute and a half after my lemon activates," Lemoner 3 whispered back.

"Activates?" questioned Lemoner 2. "Come on, tell me what you've set up. You know you want to."

Lemoner 3 smiled. "It's-"

"GIANT INFLATABLE LEMON!" screamed McKay from inside the lab. "AND IT'S INFLATING! RUN!"

Lemoner 3 pressed a button on the computer and the control crystals went dark. Lemoner three started to disconnect the computer from the crystals.

Inside the lab McKay struggled with the control crystals on his side of the door. "It won't open!"

Sheppard stared open mouthed at the huge inflating lemon, it was beginning to float above the ground.

"Sheppard!" yelled McKay, this time getting the colonels attention. "The door won't open!"

"What the…?" Sheppard turned around to face McKay. "Why the hell not?"

Some giggling from outside the door became audible.

"Hey!" exclaimed McKay. "Let us out!"

"I think you can forget about that happening," grumbled Sheppard and turned to check on the lemon. "Oh, crap!"

McKay swung around. "Wha-? Oh no!"

The inflatable lemon was still inflating (McKay figured that this was because of some kind of chemical reaction inside it.) and was over-inflating, to the point where it was about to burst.

"TAKE COVER!" yelled Sheppard and he and McKay made mad dashes for different workbenches.

The lemon creaked softly and then burst with a loud 'BANG!'. It exploded into many pieces of stretchy plastic lemon, but from inside the ex-giant inflatable lemon flew at least twenty real lemons, a whole load of yellow streamers and a ton of yellow glitter.

McKay and Sheppard, who hadn't quite managed to 'take cover' behind the workbenches, were pelted with lemons, streamers and glitter.

"Arghh! Noooooooooo! I was hit by a lemon!" exclaimed McKay as the cloud of glitter settled.

"Rodney…" began Sheppard in exasperation, he was about to remind McKay that his allergy was extremely mild, then, anticipating the following argument, though better of it.

McKay ignored him anyway. "Have I got lemon juice on my face?! Have I?!"

Sheppard glanced over at him. "No, but you are coated in glitter." Sheppard lifted one of his own hands to check if he was just as glittery as his teammate. "Oh, damn, this is going to take weeks to get rid of."

"No kidding," grumbled McKay. "Jeannie always played with glitter when we were kids and, of course, she managed to get glitter all over me nearly every time. I'm telling you, washing it off doesn't work, it just sticks to you more! But that's not the point, I need to get to the infirmary in case there's lemon juice on me."

"Alright, see if you can get the door open," said Sheppard, trying to brush the glitter off one of his arms. It was a futile attempt.

McKay swiped a hand over the door's control crystals and the door obediently opened. "Huh? Why didn't that happened before?!"

Sheppard shrugged. "Don't know, and I don't care. I'm going to go get some of this damn glitter off."

Sheppard started to walk off when his radio activated. _"Colonel Sheppard, Doctor McKay, we have a report of an explosion in Dr McKay's lab. What's the situation?" _Woolsey asked.

"Nothing serious," replied Sheppard quickly.

"Not serious to you!" snapped McKay irritatedly, then activated his own radio. "It was the Lemon- I mean: the ninjas. It was the tame ninjas, only they're not as tame now."

Sheppard bit his lip as he tried not to laugh at the following silence over the radio.

"_I see,"_ said Woolsey. Sheppard remembered him saying something similar the first time tame ninjas had been mentioned.

"_John, Rodney, report to the control room," _ordered Weir, annoyance in her tone.

Sheppard and McKay looked at each other.

"Uh… now?" asked McKay.

"_Yes, now," _answered Weir.

"Elizabeth," started Sheppard. "Can we have, say, ten minutes. Then we'll report to the control room."

"_You can have how ever long it takes you to get up to the control room," _replied Weir. _"Weir out."_

"Uh oh," commented McKay and started desperately trying to remove some of the glitter.

Sheppard tried to get the glitter off his face then, realising it wasn't working because he had glitter on his hands as well, he looked at McKay, who wasn't having any success either. "It's not coming off."

* * *

Weir waited in the control room with Woolsey, she knew that Lemoner 3 had set up something that was an attempt to win the competition before McKay discovered who all the Lemoners were, but the reports of an explosion had been worrying. And of course McKay had to mention the 'tame ninjas', which had Woolsey pacing.

"Are you sure they're all right?" asked Woolsey, stopping his pacing for a fraction of a second to look at Weir.

Weir deliberately misunderstood the question. "John said it wasn't serious, I'm sure no-one was injured."

"I meant mentally," Woolsey replied.

"They're fine," Weir assured him. "Their team hasn't had any missions for a while, they're probably just feeling a bit confined."

Sheppard and McKay chose that moment to enter the control room. A dead silence fell over the room.

Woolsey turned to Weir. "'Fine'?"

Weir didn't reply; she was trying to convince her mouth to close. Two of her senior staff were covered from head to toe in glitter, even in another galaxy, this just wasn't mean to happen.

Sheppard and McKay walked over to her and Woolsey, trying their best to look dignified and ignoring the sniggers from the control room technicians.

Sheppard took in Weir's expression. "Don't look at me like that, you're the one who called us here."

Someone's camera flashed. McKay glared accusingly at the technicians. "If I find out who took that, you'll have cold showers for a year!"

"Care to explain yourselves?" asked Weir, managing to regain control of her mouth.

Sheppard tried to say something, but McKay got in first.

"You know what?!" he snapped. "I will explain! There was an inflatable lemon in my lab! A _lemon_! A giant exploding inflatable lemon, full of real lemons and streamers and glitter! In my_ lab_!"

Even Sheppard looked slightly alarmed at this outburst, but Woolsey looked positively shocked. Weir suspected that he was wondering if there were any mental hospitals in Pegasus.

"Rodney," said Weir in what she hoped was a soothing voice. "Calm down."

"Oh, no, no, no, no, no. I will not calm down! I'm going to let _everyone_ know exactly what I think of this!" McKay marched over to a control console and activated the citywide communications. "Attention everyone! I have something to say and you are going to listen! If anyone, _anyone_, puts a lemon anywhere I might turn up they can expect no power to their quarters, cold showers and anything else unpleasant I think up! You all know about the Mysterious Lemoners-" McKay glanced at Woolsey. "Or if you didn't you do now! And I assure you I'm thinking up creative punishments for them, so if a even glimpse another lemon, the nearest person is in serious trouble! Now, Carson, I'm coming to the infirmary as I could have lemon juice on me and me on the brink of an allergic reaction, so you'd better be ready when I get there!"

His massive speech finished, McKay turned off communications and stormed out of the control room, leaving a trail of glitter behind him.

Woolsey turned accusingly to Sheppard.

Sheppard held up his hands defensively. "Don't look at, I had no idea he was going to do that."

Weir sighed, McKay had made his citywide announcement, that meant Lemoner 3 had won the competition. Weir felt somewhat disappointed.

* * *

At exactly 9pm that evening the Mysterious Lemoners entered an old unused room on the outskirts of the city.

Mysterious Lemoner 1 started the meeting. "As you all know, Rodney made his citywide announcement. This means our competition to find who can annoy Rodney the most with lemons is over." Weir paused and looked around at her fellow Lemoners. "I'm sure we'll all be sorry to part with our lemon pranks, but with John and Rodney figuring out who we are- it's not bad timing. So I would like to announce Mysterious Lemoner 3 as the winner of the Silver Lemon. Well done Chuck!"

Chuck grinned as he accepted his Silver Lemon. 'Thank you."

"I have to admit, hearing that giant inflatable lemon go off was one of the highlights of this," congratulated Lemoner 2. "That and having Colonel Sheppard tell Woolsey I was a tame ninja!"

"Yeah, Woolsey thinks he's crazy now, Lieutenant," said Lemoner 4, smiling.

Lieutenant Laura Cadman smirked. "It's his own fault."

Weir nodded. "Yes, I'd have to agree with you there. I have to ask, is there anyone outside this room, who's clued in to what's going on? Because if there is we need to tell them we've finished."

"There's Zelenka," revealed Chuck. "He downloaded my animated lemon on to McKay's computer for me while he was sending McKay some other research."

"He helped me with the MALP too," admitted Cadman. "Does Carson know what's going on?"

"No," replied Weir. "He was suspicious when I asked about Rodney's allergy, but I never told him what was going on. If it's just Zelenka who knows, that's good. Though Lorne, you should know that John said he was going to kick the person's ass who sent the lemons flying across Rodney's lab, so watch out."

"I got that when he and McKay came to tell me they knew I was a Lemoner," said Lorne.

"So it was _you_!" exclaimed Sheppard triumphantly as he opened the door to the Lemoners' meeting room.

The four Lemoners jumped and spun around to face Sheppard and McKay, who walked into the room.

"Uh…" replied Lorne.

"How-?" asked Weir.

Chuck and Cadman attempted to hide behind a broken Ancient machine.

"Competition!" complained McKay, glittering in room's light. "A _competition_!"

Sheppard (also glittering) looked at Chuck and Cadman. "We can see you y'know."

"Damn," commented Cadman.

"How did you find us?" questioned Weir.

"I put cameras around all the outskirts of the city a few days ago," said McKay, looking very pleased with himself. "Sheppard and I knew you had to have a meeting room somewhere."

"We saw you coming this way on a live feed and followed you," explained Sheppard.

"Now," continued McKay. "To announce your punishment."

Sheppard and McKay looked out the door expectantly. Right on cue, Carson and Caldwell walked into the Lemoners;' meeting room.

"What?" asked Chuck, confused.

"We've had a majority decision of the senior staff not involved," Sheppard told the Lemoners. "And we've decided that for a week you will have a new boss. You will be reporting to…"

"Me," finished McKay, looking triumphant again.

"Ohhhh no," pleaded Cadman. "Carson, tell me this isn't true!"

Carson shrugged. "I think it's perfectly fair."

"But," argued Weir. "I'm the leader of this expedition!"

"Not for the next week," replied Caldwell.

"It should be interesting for you," put in Sheppard.

McKay grinned evilly. The Lemoners exchanged suffering looks.

* * *

Weir, Sheppard and McKay stood in front of the active 'gate with Woolsey, who was about to leave.

"Are you going to include the Mysterious Lemoners in your report?" asked Weir.

Woolsey stared at her. "If I submitted a report containing 'Mysterious Lemoners' I doubt anyone would believe me. _I_ would probably end up in a mental hospital. So, no, I think it's best if I leave that out."

"Good," replied Sheppard. "Now, Elizabeth has something to say."

Weir winced and turned to McKay, hoping he'd change his mind. McKay smiled and offered her a piece of paper. "Your speech."

"I," read Weir, deciding that all her senior staff were inwardly evil. (Though with Sheppard and McKay's still glittery appearance you certainly wouldn't expect it, "would like to thank you very much, Mr Woolsey, for coming to Atlantis, and I assure you that we enjoyed having you around. I would also like to apologise for the Lemoner incident. Next time you come Atlantis will be completely lemon free and I will happily introduce you to our tame ninjas who we regret that you have not met properly yet. Again, thank you for coming and enjoy your trip back to Earth."

Weir forced a smile.

Sheppard tried not to laugh.

Woolsey looked disturbed. "Er… thank you. Though I hope next time I come these will have been taken down, there's a lot of them around the city." Woolsey pointed at a wall.

The smiles disappeared off Sheppard and McKay's faces as they saw the picture of them coated completely in glitter stuck firmly to the wall.

* * *

**A/N: **Ah, writing long speeches, what fun! I'm sad that this is over, I had loads of fun writing it. Please review and tell me what you thought!


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